The WOLD Hotel History, Mahnomen, Mahnomen Co., MN
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Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Barbara Timm
  Submitted: September 2004
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                                 THE WOLD HOTEL

                            The Wold Hotel, ca 1930
                                        
                 Photo and Information Provided by Ihleen Goetz

My grandparents, Emily and Thomas O. Wold, purchased the Wold Hotel (also 
known as the Mahnomen House and Mahnomen Hotel and later, under different 
ownership, the Letford Hotel) in 1918. It was a three story, 35 room hotel 
which had been transported via flatbed rail car from southern Wisconsin 
and reassembled in Mahnomen by the Soo Line Railroad in 1904.

The Wold family had farmed in Kittson County and owned and operated the
Commercial Hotel in Kennedy, Mn. Shortly after the family moved to 
Mahnomen, Tom Wold's sister and brother-in-law, Lena and John Peterson 
managed it for them. The Wold family moved to Crookston for about four 
years before returning to Mahnomen. The three eldest Wold daughters had 
married and left home. 
  Daughters Violette and Genevieve both graduated from Mahnomen High 
School.

My family history says "Tom and Emily spent 25 years in the hotel and 
restaurant business. They were good managers as well as warm and outgoing 
people. 
The guests enjoyed their hospitality and salesmen loved to play "whist" in 
the evenings with Tom and Emily. During the depression years careful 
management of monies was a necessity. After local banks failed, checks 
were not honored. Tom supplemented food for the hotel's restaurant with 
a garden and the chickens he raised behind the hotel. In 1936 retirement 
became a reality; Tom and Emily traveled to see their daughters in 
California. In 1938 they boarded the cruise ship "Oslofjord" and voyaged 
to Norway where they visited all the farms of their forefathers. The 
Wold's son, Theodore and his wife, Ruby, managed the hotel until it was 
sold in 1939. The elder Wolds moved to Yuba City, California"

Soon, Ted was active in the 9th District Young Republican party politics. 
As County party chairman, he delivered Mahnomen County to the election of 
Harold Stassen as Govenor in November of 1939. Ted, his wife and daughter 
moved to St. Paul where he became Director of Minnesota Hotel and 
Restaurant Health Inspection. Daughter Violette graduated from the 
University of Minnesota and married Neil Keister. They lived in 
Minneapolis. Daughter Genevieve graduated from St. Olaf College and 
married Rev. Alfred (Steve) Syverud, a Lutheran minister in Kenyon, Mn.

                                   THE WOLD FAMILY
                         Seated: Tom, Genevieve, Emily
                   Standing: Pearl, Olga, Ted, Kari, Violette
                                Taken about 1922

                  The Letford Hotel, a Mahnomen landmark, is gone
                             Mahnomen Pioneer Photo
                                        
                The Letford Hotel, a Mahnomen Landmark, is Gone

A hotel that had been a landmark in Mahnomen, Minn., for 71 years has 
been torn down to make room for an apartment building. Known as the 
Letford Hotel since 1939, and the Mahnomen House before that, the 35-
room building had been moved to Mahnomen from Wisconsin in 1904. No 
one is quite sure where in Wisconsin the building came from, but it 
is known that it arrived in two sections on railroad flatcars. The 
first all-modern building in Mahnomen, the hotel thrived into the 
1950's because of the railroad. Train crews were changed at Mahnomen 
andheadquartered at the hotel. But as passenger services declined, 
so did the hotel's business.

Here are two photographs of the Mahnomen/Wold Hotel's lobby. Tom and 
Emily Wold, owners, appear on the left of both photos. My, these photos
bring back memories of my youth what with the decorative tin ceiling 
panels and the heavy wood furnishings.
                        (c)Copyright ~ Barbara Koska Timm